After a good meal in Houston Thursday night, we spent the evening at the Quality Inn near the Space Center. Early Friday morning we left for the Space Center so that we could get an early start before Shabbat.

There we, Manhigut Yehudit’s strategy team, sat for our first strategy meeting ahead of the upcoming primaries. “According to Likud law, primaries for the party chairmanship will be held in about a year,” I said, “and we have to prepare now.”

“You don’t need to hit only the immediate, direct nuclear infrastructure of theirs. You can achieve this goal by going after some other targets, without being more specific,” said Shabtai Shavit, who served as Mossad director from 1989 to 1996.

We have seen this movie before. Already, Herman Cain is off the front pages, but there will remain readily accessible political scandals to enjoy in the wings. Ironically, whatever the particulars of these chronic humiliations, all of them will commonly disclose far more serious shortcomings about their "audience" than about their subjects.

“This is not the good old Likud that we know,” sighed the party’s veteran princes. “Where is Begin’s liberalism?” cried the journalists. “Where is the Jabotinsky splendor?” “We must guard against the tyranny of the majority.” “Democracy is in danger!” “A murky wave threatens Israel’s democracy!” “A dark Feiglinite dictatorship.”

After arriving in Boca Raton, Florida, and spending a lovely Shabbat with the Century Village friends of my brother and sister-in-law, we started our American Odyssey of 10,000 miles across America. We spent our first days in the Deep South going through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. In each state we visited one or two attractions that the AAA website listed as the best.

“The fight for democracy is taking place today within the Likud: between Ruby Rivlin, Michael Eitan and Dan Meridor on one side, and Yariv Levin, Zeev Elkin, Danny Danon and all those who are – conditionally, of course – on [Moshe] Feiglin’s endorsed list on the other.”

In Jerusalem, even when it's relatively quiet on most of the city's fronts, the tensions always zero in on one place: The holiest spot in the world, the site of the Beit HaMikdash – the Temple Mount. Current events show once again that it is here that the battle to keep Jerusalem Jewish will be decided.

I began driving on the roads slowly, with my windows open and an Israeli flag flying proudly from my car. I was the victim of far fewer rock attacks than my neighbors, who would fearfully speed through the Arab villages.